Italy Wins World Cup Of Programming

A total of 181 students from 72 teams representing 42 countries participated in the Microsoft Imagine Cup, a contest that ended on Friday. Italian team Even .ctor took first place in the software design category.

It's been a good year for Italians: first they won the World Cup, and now they've taken home the trophy in the Microsoft Imagine Cup.

A total of 181 students from 72 teams representing 42 countries participated in the games that ended on Friday. Italian team Even .ctor took first place in the software design category.

The Microsoft Imagine Cup is a competition for students to compete in creating real-life technology applications. It was designed to provide an outlet for students to fuse their technological and artistic interests outside the classroom. Other winners included Piotr Marek Mikulski from Poland in the algorithm category, Andreas Tomek from Australia in the IT category, Team Forest from Canada in the short film category, Team Virtual Dreams from Brazil in the interface design category, and Team Atomnium from France in the programming battle.

"The competition encourages students from around the world to apply their imagination and creativity to design software technology that has real world applicability," said Joe Wilson, director of academic initiatives for Microsoft in an email to sent to PC Magazine. "As a result, it enables students to bridge between their idea and its impact on both a local and global scale."

Winners were awarded $25,000 in cash and celebrated in an award ceremony held at the competition site in Delhi, India on Friday.

Over 65,000 students entered the competition in the first round. This is the fourth year for the event. The theme was "Imagine a world where technology enables us to live healthier lives."

In 2005, one of the winning teams went on to become the founders of Musigy Inc., an online community music portal. Bill Gages, chairman of Microsoft, released a statement on Friday expressing hope that this year's winners will see similar success.

"These projects demonstrate the power of software to address real-world problems, and I'm so impressed by the high levels of technical innovation that these students achieved in their work," Gates said. "This year's Imagine Cup participants all share a commitment to improving people's lives that is very inspiring. They represent the next generation of business and technology leaders, and their creativity and passion are reasons for us all to be optimistic about the future."